


Proud

by DizzyDrea



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DizzyDrea/pseuds/DizzyDrea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their wedding was a special occasion for all involved, but especially for one father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proud

**Author's Note:**

> Let me be clear about one thing right up front. I’m not an Elliot/Olivia shipper. Really. At all. However, this is the second Elliot/Olivia fanfic I’ve written. I think it’s because I love a good love story, and these two make for a good love story. This story was inspired by the song “I Loved Her First” by Heartland.
> 
> Law & Order and all its particulars is the property of Dick Wolf, Wolf Films, Studios USA, NBC Studios, Universal Television, NBC Universal Television Studio, Universal Media Studios and a lot of other people who aren't me. I do this for fun and for practice. Mostly for fun.

~o~

Today is perhaps the proudest day of my life. Prouder than the day I graduated from the academy. Prouder than the day I made Captain. Prouder even than the day Marge agreed to marry me. Nope, those days were great, but today leaves them all in the dust. You see today I gave my daughter away in marriage.

Okay, so she’s not really my biological daughter, but I couldn’t love Olivia Benson more than if she’d been born to me. I’ve know her for over ten years now, watched her grow as a woman and a police officer. And I couldn’t be more proud of her than I am right now.

I’m sitting at a table near the dance floor. It’s late, and my tie hangs from my neck—long since loosened. I’m watching Olivia and her new husband make their way slowly around the dance floor. They are gazing into each other’s eyes, and anyone watching can see how much in love they are. This has been a long time coming for them, which I suppose makes the moment all the sweeter, for them and for all of us who know and care about them.

I remember the day they first met. Olivia had just gotten her detective’s shield, and her first assignment was the one that causes even the most hardened New York cops to quake in their shoes: SVU. And she’d asked for it specifically. Her background—a child of rape—made the SVU more of a mission than a job for her. That dedication and passion has served her well.

Her first day on the job, that passion took her new partner by surprise. Elliot Stabler was my most senior detective. He’d seen it all, but her enthusiasm for the job made even Elliot take notice. I saw something between them at that first meeting. A spark, no more than that, but it was there. True, Elliot was married, but Olivia has a way of getting under your skin. It took her less than a day to get under his.

But Elliot, being married and a good Catholic, never acted on his feelings. And I know he had feelings. I could see it every time they were in a room together. It was in the way he looked at her when he thought no one was looking. The way he put his hand on the small of her back as they walked from a room. The way he tried to protect her without looking like he was protecting her. Anyone with two eyes could see what was going on.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t all Elliot. I noticed the way Olivia would watch him when they were sitting across from each other at their desks—glancing up through her eyelashes so no one would catch her. She has this thousand watt smile that Elliot brings out in her. She doesn’t smile that way often, but when she does, it’s usually for him and no one else. And she would touch him, mostly just casual gestures, connecting with him, communicating without words.

And for six years, things went on this way. Whenever they were in a room together, you could feel their attraction in the air. They could have burned the station house down with their looks some days. And the connection they shared was deep. If ever two people were soul mates, they were it. They could finish each other’s sentences. Out in the field, they knew instinctively what the other would do or say.

And in the interrogation room, look out. Perps didn’t stand a chance. They would circle like sharks coming in for the kill. Each knew what the other would do or say, reacting to each other without thought, taking advantage of the suspect’s weaknesses. Usually, the guy would confess just to get out of the room. The intensity was often too much for them. I can’t say I blame them. The intensity was often too much for the rest of us.

It wasn’t always perfect. They argued, like all couples do. Quite often, one or the other would play devil’s advocate, just so they could argue, push each other’s buttons. It was like watching two roosters in a coop, both vying for supremacy. Then, one or the other would concede, and things would go back to normal. I think sometimes they argued just so they’d have an outlet for the passion they kept locked up inside.

Things started to change for them, though. Elliot became angry, and no one knew why. I suspected, but didn’t say anything because it’s not my place to interfere in my detective’s lives. Then one day he came to me. Told me his wife had left him, taken the kids to her mother’s. He was devastated. He didn’t say why she’d left, but I had a pretty good idea.

For a long time, Elliot had been leaning on his partner. They shared everything, good and bad. Quite often, after a particularly bad case, they would go out after work and have a drink together, talk themselves through the worst of it. But if he was talking to Olivia, he wasn’t talking to his wife. And it must have frustrated Kathy to know that her husband was sharing more with someone else than he did with her. It’s a formula for a failed marriage, and that’s exactly what happened.

I’m not saying it was Olivia’s fault that Elliot and Kathy divorced. It isn’t. She respected his marriage, respected the vows he’d taken. She never tried to force the issue with them, never tried to get him to leave his wife and family for her. She never admitted she had feelings for him other than deep friendship. She even encouraged him to open up to his wife, to stop shutting her out. But she was the “other woman” in his marriage none the less. And that was hard for him to take. And impossible for Kathy to live with. So they divorced.

The stress of the situation leaked out into all parts of Elliot’s life. He lashed out at everyone, me included. We all took it in, understanding his need to ride this emotional roller coaster to the end. But it wasn’t easy. Elliot depended on Olivia more than ever. And she was there for him. She supported him and comforted him, and even berated him when he needed it. If not for her, I’m not sure Elliot would have gotten through his divorce.

But then something changed. They had been working a child abduction case, and at some point, Elliot was forced to choose between his partner and a child at risk. Ordinarily, he would have put the case first, but this time he chose his partner. And a child died. He beat himself up over that. And Olivia asked for a transfer. After seven years as partners, she just couldn’t take what was happening anymore. She saw what the rest of us had failed to realize: Elliot had become dependant on her, as more than just a partner, and it was affecting his job.

Not that she wasn’t pleased that he cared for her so much, because I imagine she was as happy as she’d ever been. But that also meant that the Elliot she’d known and cared about for seven years had somehow disappeared. His dedication to his job was one of the things she admired about him. We all did. And that was now in jeopardy. His priorities were skewed, and she didn’t know how to handle that. So she did the only thing she could think of: she ran.

And that hurt him. He didn’t understand why she didn’t want to be his partner anymore. He didn’t realize that his problems were affecting his job. I suppose we all carry some of the blame for that. Any one of us could have talked to him, helped set him to rights. But we didn’t, figuring that Olivia would take care of it. She always did. But this time she wasn’t there. Elliot nearly fell apart without her beside him. But somehow, he brought himself back from the brink, and set about fixing what was broken. It was something to see.

Slowly, he pulled himself back together, and after a few weeks, Olivia decided that where she really belonged was by his side in SVU, fighting the good fight. I thought things would go back to normal after that. Well, as normal as things get in the sex crimes unit. Boy, was I wrong.

Olivia caught a case that really sucked her in. A young woman was raped, but refused to report it, no matter what Olivia said or did. It turned out she was an FBI informant, working on an eco-terror case. The guy who raped her was someone she knew from her last assignment as an informant, trying to punish her for what she’d done to him. She was so angry and afraid she didn’t want anyone’s help. She wanted to solve the problem her own way. Olivia wound up going undercover with the young woman, trying to keep her from running after she’d killed her rapist. I’ll never understand quite how that happened. I’d already told her I didn’t want her working the case, but still she ended up undercover.

The events of that night aren’t particularly clear to me, even now. The job went bad, that I do know. The informant wound up dead. And I was informed that one of my best detectives was being reassigned indefinitely to the FBI on an undercover assignment. Just like that, she was gone.

Elliot, who had no idea what was going on, was furious. She’d just come back. After the longest year of his life, and after everything they’d been through, they had just patched things up. And then she was gone. He thought she’d run again. What else could he think? I couldn’t tell him the truth. I hardly knew what had happened myself. And I was under orders not to reveal what I did know. I couldn’t help him, and man did I want to.

They are like my children, every one of my detectives, even Munch. Well, maybe John Munch is more like a weird cousin, but they are family just the same. One of my family was hurting, and this time I could do nothing to help. And to top everything off, I had to replace Olivia. I couldn’t run the unit one man down indefinitely. No one could tell me how long Olivia would be gone, so I had to make plans.

I brought in a new detective, Dani Beck. She was a loose cannon, much like Elliot can sometimes be. She came over from Warrants under a cloud, and I wasn’t sure she would work out. It was rough on both of them. Elliot didn’t want a new partner, but he didn’t make it harder on her than it had to be, which surprised me a little. And Dani had rough edges, hard on the victims some days, not hard enough on others. Her judgment was suspect on more than one occasion. Eventually, they worked things out, and it looked like Dani might make it.

When Olivia came back from her FBI assignment, she knew she was in for a rough time. She came to see me, to let me know she was back. She looked good, happy, and I thought it was because she wanted to come back to the unit, to Elliot. But she caught a glimpse of Elliot and Dani in the bullpen, and I could see her face fall. I don’t think she was prepared for the sight of Elliot with another partner. She claimed she wasn’t ready to come back yet. When I asked her if she’d talked to Elliot, she said she’d talk to him later, and then beat a hasty retreat out of my office.

I didn’t believe for one second that she wasn’t ready to come back. I know Olivia. She was dying to get back to her life. But seeing Elliot and Dani together must have hurt. Must have made her feel as though she wasn’t welcome in her own life anymore. And I couldn’t help her this time. Having Dani on the team meant I didn’t have an open slot for Olivia, much as I wanted to have her back.

Days passed and I debated about whether or not to tell Elliot that Olivia was back. I suspected she hadn’t called him, hadn’t told him she was back. We were in the middle of a strange case involving a couple of adopted children with abusive parents. I decided to check in with Elliot, test the waters. I asked how Dani was working out. He said fine, that they were getting along and things were going well. When I asked if that meant that he didn’t want his old partner back, he bristled, said he didn’t think that was up to him. Still angry, I surmised. But it also meant he still cared. I tucked that away for future reference.

Then, at the end of the case, things went bad for Dani. One of the kids from the case was staying with her until the trial. The little girl tried to burn her apartment down. Dani had finally had enough. She left the unit that night. Her big heart had finally finished her. She’d been getting emotionally involved with the cases, and in the end, she realized that she couldn’t keep doing that and hope to survive. So she quit the SVU instead of try to find a way to deal with it.

To tell the truth, I was glad. That meant I could bring Olivia back, reunite the partners and see if I could manage a little damage control. So, the next case we caught, I phoned Olivia and asked her to come back and help out her partner. She wasn’t sure that was a good idea. I told her that this is where she belongs, and it was time to come home. I wasn’t sure that would get through to her, but somehow it did. She turned up at the interview Elliot was doing, and stuck with it the entire case.

They say that absence can make the heart grow fonder or forgetful. I wasn’t sure which it would be with those two. Olivia had only been gone for six weeks, but after everything they’d been through, I figured they’d either kill each other or pick up where they left off. I wasn’t sure the rest of us would survive the blowout if things didn’t work out between them. Olivia is the heart and soul of our unit, and without her, our family is diminished.

They must have worked something out, because their relationship picked up as if they’d never been apart, much to my relief. They were more subdued now, more tentative around each other. But no less in sync. Cases came and went, and they cleared their fair share. They worked hard, and things went along as though they’d always been this way.

I noticed a change in their relationship about six months after Olivia came back. They started leaving together more often, talking about dinner or drinks like they used to. And the tension level went up significantly when they were in a room together. The sizzle of attraction was visible in the air once more, and they even began arguing with each other more regularly.

Fin Tutuola was the first one to mention it. He said he thought things were getting interesting between them again, and that he’d bet good money they’d be married within the year. Munch scoffed at the idea, saying they wouldn’t ruin a good working relationship with all that mushy emotional stuff. Leave it to Munch to boil down what those two have into the phrase “mushy emotional stuff.”

Secretly, I agreed with Fin. They would end up married one day, and I’d have to figure out what to do with my unit. I wasn’t too sure it was a good idea to leave them partnered, if that was the direction their relationship was going. I mean, look what happened the last time their emotions got so strong. But I knew they would come to me before it ever got that far, so I was content to wait to make those decisions until then.

Little did I know what was going on right under my nose. Oh, I saw the looks return, and the touches, but they kept it out of work. Whatever I might have suspected, I didn’t have any evidence to prove what might be going on. And I was grateful for that. The last thing I wanted to do was call those two into my office and lecture them about their behavior. I’d had enough of that during the previous year.

Then about six months ago they came to me. It was early, before most folks had even arrived at the station house for work. I knew then that something was up. They stood apart, almost on opposite sides of my office, studiously trying not to look at each other. I ordered them to spit it out. Surprises have never been a favorite of mine. They looked at each other then, and I knew.

Elliot told me that he had proposed to Olivia the night before, and that she’d accepted. I looked to Olivia and saw the diamond ring glinting on her finger. She was smiling, that thousand watt smile I mentioned. When I glanced back at Elliot, he was smiling too, a goofy grin that spoke volumes.

I was happy for them, and I told them so. I was also impressed that they had managed to keep their personal life out of the precinct. I figured it had been at least a year since they’d started seeing each other, and in that time they must have had the normal ups and downs that every couple has, but none of us had noticed a difference at work. The truce they’d worked out when Olivia returned from her FBI assignment had laid the groundwork for something special.

I congratulated them and told them that I would work on a plan that would keep them in the unit. I made no promises about staying partnered. NYPD is fussy about these things, wanting to avoid even a hint of impropriety. But since I knew they’d managed to see each other romantically for a year without it affecting the operation of the unit, I figured the brass would accept whatever solution I handed them. I just had to come up with one we could all live with.

Then Olivia laid one on me that I don’t think I’ve recovered from still. She asked me to give her away. I was absolutely floored that she thought of me as a father figure. And I was honored that she wanted me to have such a large part of their special day. They both insisted that I participate in the planning as if I were truly Olivia’s father, which brings tears to my eyes even now.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, as I sit here with tears in my eyes, and glance up to find ADA Casey Novak smiling down at me. She looks radiant in the ice blue dress Olivia chose for her maid of honor, and I can’t help but think that this young woman has become as much a part of my family as the rest of them.

“Penny for your thoughts,” she says as she comes around to sit next to me.

I chuckle and think, if only she knew the half of it. “I was just thinking about the two of them,” I smile, knowing she could tell where my mind has been.

She glances out to the dance floor, following my eyes. “They look happy,” she says.

I continue to watch Elliot and Olivia, still swaying together as if they are the only ones left in the room. The band doesn’t have the heart to play anything faster than a slow waltz, and I’m grateful. The white of Olivia’s gown gives her an ethereal glow, and she looks like a princess, floating next to her prince, resplendent in his dark suit and pale blue tie.

“They are happy,” I reply.

“And what about you?” she says, returning her eyes to focus on mine.

“What about me?” I ask, meeting her gaze.

She tilts her head and considers for a moment what to say. “Things will be different now,” she continues.

“It’ll be good,” I tell her, and I mean it. “When they get back from their honeymoon, I’ll put Munch and Olivia together, and partner Elliot and Fin.”

I have every confidence that the four of them will make it work. John has always seen Olivia as a little sister, so I know he’ll take good care of her. And Elliot is one of the few people Fin trusts. I know them. They’ll work it out.

Casey nods. She knows it was a difficult decision for me to make. Breaking up one partnership is tough. I had to break up two. But the reward is worth it if I get to keep all four of them in the unit.

“So, who won the bet?”

“The bet?” I look at her, feigning innocence. I’m not fooling her.

“Yes, the bet,” she says patiently. “The one about how long it would take those two to walk down the aisle. Who won?”

I smile then, a Cheshire cat smile that speaks volumes. She stares at me in wide-eyed disbelief.

“No way!” she exclaims. “You cheated!”

“I didn’t cheat. I placed my bet before they told me they were engaged,” I tell her, though I’m not sure she believes me.

“Right,” she rejoins.

I wink at her. “I know my detectives, Counselor,” I tell her.

Casey laughs, a hearty laugh that lets me know she understands. She knows them too, which is why she also placed a bet. Can I help it if I know them just a little bit better?

“Come on,” she says, standing up and holding her hand out to me. I look up and give her a puzzled stare. “Dance with me,” she says, still smiling, wiggling her fingers, beckoning me to join her.

I rise, and take Casey’s hand, leading her out to the dance floor. The music is still soft and slow, and I take her in my arms and begin to twirl her around. She throws her head back and laughs at my enthusiasm. I can’t hide the joy in my heart today. I don’t even want to try.

I catch Elliot and Olivia looking at us from their place across the dance floor. They’re smiling at me, and I smile back. Today has been the proudest day of my life, and I’m grateful it came with my family at my side.

~Finis


End file.
